The December pre-beta 2 release of Windows Vista offers the first true glimpse of the OS but is missing key elements. More information and screenshots can be found at Desktop Pipeline.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-08
The blur is actually intended to be *less* distracting than a regular transparency, and I think it would accomplish that much better in live usage than in a screenshot.
It's a gimmick, but not an entirely vapid one.
I don't think MS will ever intentionally break more than 10% of applications on the home desktop side of their market, but they might consider breaking as much as 50% of supported applications on the server side of things - the side-benefit of breaking it on the server side is that companies who are locked in then have to pay even more to upgrade to the latest versions, generating a mini-market for Vista all of its own.
Member since:2005-07-06
Regarding 'multi-user compatibility', most applications out there, being sold, are already compatible - the only things that aren't are *really* old applications; and if they're old, and there are no replacements, its obvious that the were shit product to begin with, otherwise that software company would have been rolling in money and rolling out a new up-to-date version.
What Microsoft needs to do, however, is push the "Vista Compatible" logo; those software companies which are compatible with Vista, that is, multi-user compatible and all the features, can use the special logo - and yes, its also a nice way to push upgrades as well onto the general public 
Member since:2005-07-22
Member since:2005-11-10
Member since:
2005-12-06
First off, I pray they make it easy to turn off the window border transparency, as along with the background blur in the transparency it's too distracting and accomplishes nothing other than being a gimmick. Transparency for inactive windows would make a lot more sense. And for that matter, Windows should be more naturally configurable to those who like configuration. You shouldn't have to do questionable dll patches or have to use 3rd party software in the first place.
Also, I fear the Unix advantage of privledges is going to go by the wayside. I wish MS would just say sorry companies, but your app is broken and you need to make it work with user only priveledges. It becomes too much of a pain to work in Windows not in administer. And for those to counter with you can with a little learning and properly administered computers won't have that problem, I hate to disappoint you, but you just went over Joe and Jane's heads...